Rocking out a workout at the Mirage Hotel gym in Las Vegas in February. Day after my Half Marathon win and PR.

While away for my sister’s bridal shower weekend last week, I stayed at a Holiday Inn Express. I posted a couple stories on my Instagram at the time, showing the incredibly tiny gym and the minimal options I was presented with for weight lifting. I decided this is a great topic for a blog, as many people travel for work or leisure, and don’t want their routines interrupted. This may also be helpful if you have extra space at home and are looking to create your own personal gym.

When weight training, you really don’t need much. This is assuming you know how to utilize free weights in a meaningful and safe way. The benefit to weight machines is that form is somewhat guided, so creativity doesn’t need to be high, and most moves are supported. Weight machines take up a ton of space, so many older hotels or ones with tiny gyms won’t have them.

If you have room and access to a bench, a mat, and a stability ball, along with a healthy assortment of free weights (dumb bells and/or bar bells), you can get in a fantastic weight training session.

Utilize the mat for pushups, planks, core work in general, and stretching.

Utilize the weights whenever possible over simple bodyweight work for a more intense workout and greater payoff. If you have a nice weight range, you should be able to challenge and exhaust pretty much everything head to toe.

If creativity is low, or you have questions on form, there are tons of Youtube channels out there with decent demonstrations and tips. Training while traveling can be a challenge, but it can also be a new adventure! Unlike my hotel experience last weekend, my recent hotel experience in Las Vegas at the Mirage was a pleasant surprise – it was really awesome. Everything you could imagine and more! Make opportunities instead of excuses, and your training will rarely get off track.

It’s a common belief that weight training, especially with heavy weights, will make us bulk up. If you’re a runner, that probably sounds like bad news. After all, runners want to be as light and lean as possible, and additional weight makes running more challenging. This belief is completely false. In fact, runners should embrace the weight room in their gym. You may find your form and stride to improve, and injury risk to go down. But even if you’re on board with the concept, it can be hard to figure out how and when to include weight training to your running schedule, especially if you are diving into something intense and time consuming like marathon training. Today I’ll debunk the weight training/runner myth, and also give some tips as to how to include weight training into your running schedule.

Training specificity is important for improving. So if you are training to improve as a runner, you need to be running! However, it can be very helpful to incorporate yoga, cross training and weight training into your routine to support your running goals. So while much of your time should be spent running, most of us would benefit from not just running. For one thing, injury risk can go up as mileage or intensity increases. And while running can certainly make us strong, it’s not enough to strengthen our upper body, core, and even lower body in a way that will make use our best. We need more. The good news is that a little time in the gym lifting heavy can go a long way. For runners, strength training is a key component in boosting performance – both for speedsters and endurance junkies. Adding the strength and power you get from weight lifting will help you run faster. It will also help maintain good running form, even when fatigued. If you run longer distances, it is important to have good form when fatigued because this will help prevent injuries, and help with efficiency in those late miles. Short distance and long distance runners alike can benefit from strength training.

If time and energy are limited, aim for 2-3 gym sessions per week. Stack them on days you are already working hard – track, tempo, long run days – for example. If you can get in a 30-60 minute routine, working head-to-toe, focusing on lifting heavy and good form, you will see and feel improvements in your running. If you don’t have access to gym equipment, or are short on time, this article may be very helpful. There are some basic things you can do at home and with your own body weight. Something is far better than nothing! When at the gym, try aiming for moves that incorporate multiple muscle groups can be really helpful. You’ll get more out of your training, won’t need as many exercises, and when you run, you are using tons of muscles at a time, so isolating one muscle per exercise isn’t as helpful for a runner. Use the heaviest weight you can for 3 sets of 8-12, with good form. If you can handle more than that, you need to increase the weight. Be sure to have a protein-dense snack or meal after your weight training session.

Breaking down 5 Myths About Strength Training and Running, Coach Jeff offers some good advice and insight. Hopefully you are now on board and eager to add some serious weight training to your training calendar. You can anticipate some big payoff – few injuries, better and more efficient form, and faster times!

As one calendar year is about to come to a close and we look to the New Year, fitness and health frequently take center stage. This is often a time of reflection on the previous year – races, health, nutrition, happiness, and a time of anticipation and dreams for the future – getting health or weight on track, attempting your first race, working to set new personal race records, trying a new sport, dropping a dress size, sweating on a daily basis, gaining muscle, eating a balanced diet – the dreams and possibilities are endless!

While sorting through your goals, I recommend you do a few things in order to better your odds of succeeding:

Be honest about your level of dedication/commitment to change – and what kind of change. It may be a million times easier to achieve a 30 minute walk per day for you, than to consume over 10 servings of fruits/veggies per day – for example.

Be patient, and take your goals one day at a time. You are a human being, so expecting a perfect track record is dooming yourself off the bat. While focusing on each day, do have a clear goal for a few weeks, months or years from now. Each day of success will take you a step closer towards that goal or milestone.

Ask for help. Very few humans can hold themselves 100% accountable for real change. Rely on a friend, hire a coach/trainer, or use social media or a journal to help your accountability. Meetup groups can also be helpful.

Change takes time. Don’t expect to see or feel a huge difference within a day or week. However, you’ll be surprised the difference you’ll notice in a month or two!

Trying something new may not be right for you. Or perhaps what you try won’t be the right fit. Perhaps kickboxing is a better fit than ballroom dancing, for example. We are all different, so don’t feel bad if what you initially try isn’t the right thing! Move on and be fearless in what you try.

When creating a race goal, be sure to give yourself enough time to be successful! Also be sure any additional races you add to your schedule are supportive of that big goal and not destructive. A big PR in a marathon you flop on your schedule for 12 weeks from now is not wise. Understand your goals the time and work they’ll require.

Laugh, have fun and get creative with your goals. Not every day will be easy or fun, but I’m a firm believer that we stick to something we like, and that brings positive change to our lives. Life is too short to be unhappy or dissatisfied. See the humor and fun in everything you can!

Toss out the negative. Recognize triggers, and kick them to a curb. Perhaps it’s your daily mid-morning baked good from the office kitchen, or that friend who guilts you into ditching your run for happy hour each week. Everything is a choice, but you can make those choices easier by breaking bad habits, relationships and influences.

If or when you fall off your goals (remember – you are human!), simply pick yourself back up and try again. Just be sure to not do the same thing and expect a different result. You don’t need a New Year to spring into your goals. Tomorrow is just as good as January 1st.

Let’s face it, everyone wants to have abs. Just check out people at the gym, and the ab machines are constantly in use. I am also going to bet that most of the folks on the ab machines, or on the floor hammering out crunches will give up sooner or later, no closer to that six-pack than when they started.

Here’s the thing: you will never see that six-pack unless you reduce your overall body fat percentage. Everyone has core muscles. Some are obviously stronger or larger than others. But as long as your body fat level is too high, you won’t see them. Just to be clear: in order to see your abs seriously pop, your body fat has to be very LOW. So saying that your body fat is too high to see abs doesn’t mean you are fat. It just means your body fat level is too high to see your core.

So, while strengthening your core is beneficial for lots of reasons, you will have to drop some fat to see those abs. If you are already in great shape, shedding those few extra pounds can be a struggle – especially for women. Ladies, we simply have bodies programmed to hang on to fat, so we have got to be strong and extremely motivated to shave that fat percent down.

The cool thing: the more muscle you have, the more calories you burn. So those ab workouts are indeed beneficial. Just be patient and stick with it. Cutting calories a bit can help too. Just remember to cut those empty calories, not nutrient-dense foods your body needs while training.

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